Faith & Repentance

Bishop Beecroft gave a wonderful lesson on faith and repentance to the priesthood & RS groups this morning. This was a continuation of his talk in ward conference about keeping the gospel simple. He started by commending to us the book "Believing Christ" by Stephen Robinson. He shared some stories from this book about the author's experiences as a bishop hearing many of his flock express doubts about their capacity to be changed in their hearts. He concluded that while virtually all of them believed IN Christ -- that He was a great teacher, a prophet, and even the Son of God and our Redeemer -- they didn't really believe what He taught and that it could actually be applied in their own life.

He referred frequently to Isaiah 1:18 which beautifully articulates the Atonement's power in our lives. Christ can actually cleanse us from a sin, forgive us of that sin, forget about the sin, and change our hearts so that we forsake the sin. The Bishop recounted a talk in the University ward many years ago where the point was made that repentance is instantaneous; it is NOT repenting that takes a long time. He also quoted Elder Holland saying that repentance takes as long as it takes to say "I'll change" and mean it. Certainly there are many things we must do to carry out this commitment, but as soon as we have decided we want to change and are willing to exert the effort to do so and have the faith in Christ to believe He will help us, we are repenting. Before we can do this, though, we have to believe that Christ will help us and that His way is the better way -- in other words, we must really have faith in Him.

Bishop Beecroft went on to tell a story that was told by Elder Holland many years ago when he was president of BYU ("For Times of Trouble" 3/18/80). It was the story of a man in the early days of the church named Eli Pierce who in 1875 was called on a mission, despite his many unsavory personal habits that were in conflict with the commandments. When he was called, he immediately forsook his bad habits, purchased scriptures & began studying them. While on his mission he and the president of a branch were seen praying for the health of a the branch president's dying infant. One of the man's daughters witnessed their prayer and said she saw an angel standing with them while they prayed. Elder Holland went on to say "if God in his heavens will do that for a repentant cigar-smoking, inactive, swearing pool player, don't you think he'll do it for you?"